It’s interesting to reflect on Chicago-based romantic comedies in my life time. I cannot even come up with a handful and I don’t necessarily thing they’re all that great. Sure, one specifically, could be crowned somewhat of a standby and potentially used as the measuring stick, but I’d probably be ridiculed for making the proclamation.
Gail and I see these Hunger Games movies reflexively. Same with Divergent. We didn’t read the books and we don’t have any sort of connection to the stories really besides the fact that our nieces like them. They’re just kind of cool I guess. It could be the big draw for us is sci-fi, which we seem to consume a lot on the screen but not so much in books.
The first thing I thought of after reading this book was, “Aha, now I know where the people who made Book of Eli got the idea.” My next thought centered around how cool it is to read sci-fi written sixty years ago. If you can’t tell, for the most part, I’m pretty shallow.
Gail puts every Colin Firth movie in her Netflix queue. In this one he’s divorced and has a bad relationship with his son, so he fakes his death and heads north from Florida to Indiana in hopes of landing a gig as a “golf pro Arthur Newman.” He’s really just some working stiff who happens to be decent at golf.
This was a great flick. Highly original and highly entertaining. It got some killer reviews globally but never really got any traction in the US. Gail and I queued it up on Netflix one evening and ended up really liking the experience. Once again, Gail gets most of the credit for the find.
What? Huh? Cool! Those were some of my mixed reactions to this dark, modern day, Irish crime novel by a guy named Ken Bruen. It’s book number one in the Jack Taylor series. I always start with book number one, if I can help it, as you probably know by now.
This book was written by Hugh Laurie, the dude who played House, which I’ve never seen. I’m familiar with his work though from Sense and Sensibility, where he nailed it, albeit in just a small part. He’s an actor, comedian, and a musician, so he covers all the angles, which probably means it should not come as a surprise that this book combines thriller aspects and humor aspects. In fact, it’s almost overly humorous at times, so much so that it could take away from the thriller aspect.
The problem is whenever I see a Browns game now I think to myself, “Wow, I guess Costner did put together a decent team.” In case you haven’t noticed the Browns are better this year than they have been in years, which coincides roughly with this movie. Weird huh?
This is an amazing story. The story transcends any era or actors or medium. I’ve seen both movies and now I’ve read the book, and they’re all great. The book, of course, is the most compelling because it really puts you inside the head of the main character better than any movie can. Mattie Ross, the fourteen year old girl out to avenge her father’s death, is one of the great characters of our time.
Whoa, this season was intense. I’m watching it a year late so I don’t get to see any reviews, but it doesn’t seem to dominate the award shows like the first season did. In my view, I think it just keeps getting better. I’m in lockdown mode on Homeland news now because we’re in the middle of season four and I won’t be able to see it until next summer. This hasn’t been hard to manage thus far.